A Promise To Keep
by Crystabel.Shalott
Summary: Sybil Crawley has been living at Bletchley Park for some years when she meets Tom Branson. It doesn't take much for the two of them to become friends and lovers, but destiny has other plans. They part with the promise to see each other again, and resume their relationship. It's 1945 and Sybil departs for Ireland with the intention to keep that promise.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: Thank you Tammyteresa64 for the beta._

* * *

><p><strong>1945, Back at Downton<strong>

She could see Downton from a distance. The building was, as ever, standing there majestically, erecting itself towards the clear blue sky. The spires, the large windows, and the towers gave the house an imposing appearance. Everything that characterized Downton came straight from another era, and in the current days simply seemed out-of-place. It was a leftover of a golden age that had long gone, a place out of time and space as if it was a world on its own. And it was like this, in a certain way because the war didn't seem to have affected it, it was unchanged from what Sybil remembered and so different from all the cities destroyed by the bombs. Entire buildings had crumbled and yet Downton was still standing there. Time and history had not affected it.

_In war and peace Downton still stands and the Crawleys are still in it._

Her grandmother's words came back to her mind, and Sybil couldn't help but agree with it. But if someone would have asked her for a word to describe her childhood home, her family's home for centuries, she would have used the word farce. That was it: a farce. Life went on as usual without being affected by the events that had taken place in the world in the last six years and without recognition that time and habits had changed long ago. A monument to an age long gone, to a social status that shouldn't have mattered much anymore, she had never felt Downton was her home. She had never gotten used to her life there, much to her father's annoyance but now, as she was walking along the main road that led to it, after an absence of seven years and with no luggage except for a small suitcase and a wooden box, Sybil found herself realizing that Downton was the best place for her.

Not because of habits and ideals, oh no, but because her own life, all the events of the last six years, the people she met, her work, the place she lived had all been erased. She couldn't say a word, forever bound by an oath of secrecy that she had made with the British government. If Downton was a farce, so was she.

Lies, lies, and even more lies. Lies about everything. Sometimes it felt as if the only thing she had done since the ending of the war was conjecturing plausible stories that she could tell her closest acquaintances. One slip, one wrong word, and she could be charged for high treason.

She wasn't sure that she would be able to do it; her sisters had always told her that she was like an open book. Unable to lie. The advantage was that everyone else would have too many things on their mind to mind her, and she was only staying for one night. She would be taking the first train heading to Liverpool the following morning, then a ferry to Ireland and after that she still didn't have any plans.

"Welcome home!"

Sybil looked in front of her and saw her mother walking towards her, her arms wide open ready to embrace her long unseen daughter.

She smiled, quickened her pace and momentary dropped her luggage on the pebbles of the driveway.

"Mama! It's good to see you again"

"Indeed. How are you darling? Let me help you"

Cora was about to take Sybil's wooden box from the ground, only because that it seemed heavier than the suitcase. Sybil had already carried both of them from the station and even if it was just a few meters to the doors of Downton she wanted to free her daughter from at least one burden. Her mother's hand was already on the handle when Sybil abruptly snapped it away from her.

Sybil looked carefully at her mother, fearing for a moment that she would ask why she had refused help with such a passion, but her mother didn't seem to be bothered by it, which was a fluke. By no means should someone who wasn't her get their hands on that box. She was aware that questions might come anyway, even just by seeing it, but Sybil feared that if the box was taken questions would have arisen immediately and she couldn't have answered them. Not now, not ever. Until everyone minded their own business it would not be safe, and if they wanted to make up their own version of what she was dragging along (the first thought would be a typewriter anyway) they were welcome to it. They wouldn't guess the truth, not even in a billion years.

"I can manage mama, but thank you" she then said calmly.

"As you wish, but I don't mind helping you"

"There really is no need" she reassured Cora again.

"You know, everyone is looking forward to seeing you again. It's been such a long time; the only pity is that you have to leave tomorrow. Does it really have to be like this?"

"I'm afraid it has to be, but I promise that I will come back again. It's just that there are things I have to do before everything else..."

Sybil was cut off by a loud shriek and a hug from her sister that nearly left her breathless and that nearly made her drop her luggage on the ground.

"I can't believe you are here again. Let me look at you, you are all grown up and a little worn-out"

"It's been very busy and intense years"

Edith had no idea how some of the people Sybil knew were doing. There had been several cases of breakdowns among her colleagues, people who were sent away for a month or two to recuperate. Once the additions to staff started to arrive and once the first improvements had been made, it started to get a little better but Sybil had a vivid picture of how things were at Bletchley at the very beginning, before the building of the bombe machines when there was a desperate need and urgency in finding a solution to the apparently unbreakable Nazi codes as soon as possible.

And then there were all the people who had lived the war and the horrors that it had brought directly on their own skin... No she could not complain about her situation.

"I know and it might not seem like it but we had our work to do even here. And we can't complain about our work, there were others who had to deal with worse"

Sybil just nodded.

"Where is everyone?"

"Mary, Matthew and George are visiting Cousin Isobel; they should be back before dinner. Your father is in the library"

Sybil didn't bother to ask why he didn't come out to greet her like the rest of her family. She was fully conscious that the disagreements they had in the past would always remain between them, that the words that they had once shouted to each other were not to be forgotten easily. She loved her father dearly but long ago she had accepted that the two of them wouldn't have the relationship they once had. Lord Grantham had never accepted that his youngest daughter wanted to become nothing more than a teacher, that she was political, and that she turned her back to family tradition.

It probably would never change; they just had to deal with it.

She followed everyone inside and walked directly to the library with the intention of greeting her father before going back to her room to rest for some time.

"Hello papa" she said, still standing on the doorstep.

"So you are back, did you have a pleasant journey?"

"I did, thank you. And I hope that the next part of it will be equally pleasant"

"So you really are going away again. I guess we can't stop you, can we?"

"No, and believe it or not I'm sorry that I have to go away right away. I've missed you all so terribly much"

"But it is your choice to leave"

Sybil simply nodded, trying not to take it too personally about the fact that it was her choice not to stay. She remembered her father's words (something that Robert himself apparently didn't) and they had been _If you walk through that door, you don't have to bother to come back._

"What time do you leave tomorrow?"

"I take the first train, then I have to take the ferry and I will spent a night in Dublin"

She hoped that her father wouldn't ask for more information about what she would do once she reached Dublin, because even she didn't know. She had no plan whatsoever, no indications about what to do next, no point from where to start.

Wrong: she had a crumpled letter in the left pocket of her coat. That was the point from which she would start, but it didn't change the fact that she still hadn't had the time to decipher the letter thus not having a clue about its contents. She hoped in something useful - an address, some indication - but she couldn't be sure. She had found herself several times at the point of encrypting it, but she needed privacy and she needed time to do it, and both were things that she hadn't had lately and that she didn't have at Downton.

Her plan was to reach Dublin, rent a room for however long necessary and then start to work on it no matter how long it would take her. One step at time, even if the waiting was unbearable.

"Why did you say that you have to go to Ireland with such urgency?"

"I didn't say. I just need to find something"

"Something or someone?" asked Lord Grantham.

"Someone"

_Just keep it simple. _

"I see, and couldn't it wait? Or even better why couldn't you invite her here?"

_Because my friend is a him, and he is not just my friend but my fiancé - though you don't know that yet. Besides I have no clue where he is, what happened to him, if he is still alive. All that I have is an encrypted code I can't talk about, events I can't talk about, and a promise made on a cold night in January._

_Oh Tom._

Sybil felt a lump in her throat and she tried hard to suppress the sobs.

How long had she wanted to cry because Tom Branson, the man she loved with all her heart, had been forced to disappear? A very long time, but she never did except for the day of their departure. But now all the sorrow and pain were coming at once, and this was the worst moment.

"When will you be coming back?"

"I don't know, but I will tell you in time"

"Have you enough money?"

Sybil nodded. She had to leave; she had to reach her room before breaking down in tears.

A quick kiss on her father's cheek and she was out of the room. She dragged herself up the stairs refusing help again with her luggage and reached her room. She placed her luggage in the wardrobe and looked around herself.

It was a strange feeling to be in it again, somehow the size of it seemed too big. When she worked as a teacher in London her room had been half the size of the one at Downton, and at Bletchley... Well at Bletchley Park it had been big enough for a bed and a bookshelf, but with no space to do anything else (not that there really was the time).

She curled up on her bed and waited for the tears from a moment ago to come, but they didn't. It was funny really, how it worked. The sorrow was there but she was always unable to let it out: she unconsciously bottled it all up and was still waiting for the breaking point. When she was at Bletchley her work had kept her busy, and at the end of the day she was too tired to thing about anything, but now that she was back home and was about to look for him it got difficult to think about anything else.

She hated not knowing. If she had some secure information about him she could have cheered if he was still alive and she could have tried to move on if he wasn't. But she was struck in some in-between without being any clever than she was before.

She missed him terribly; she had missed him terribly for months now. She longed for his presence, his touch, his tenderness. She wanted to hear his voice, with the strong Irish accent, at the end of the day. She wanted to hear his laugh again. She would have given everything in the world just to see him again, and hopefully she would.

Of one thing Sybil was sure: she would not give him up, she would not lose her hope.

Mary was just passing by Sybil's room when she heard a cry of pain coming out of her sister's room. She opened the door gently and walked in. Sybil was still sleeping, and she was murmuring something that Mary didn't get except for the word 'Tom' said over and over again.

"Sybil?" Mary placed her hand on Sybil's shoulder, waking her.

Sybil woke up screaming out loud. It took her a moment to realize that she was at Downton, in her room, and that it was Mary who just touched her. She rubbed her eyes with her hands, and let the last memories of her dreams vanish, before sitting upright with her back leaning against the bedpost. She took a couple of deep breaths, waiting for her heartbeat to slow down and for her to feel ready to talk without the risk of her voice breaking down in the middle of a sentence.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..."

"Don't mind me; everyone has nightmares from time to time. How are you Sybil?"

The question was rhetorical, it was evident that something bothered Sybil and yet Mary didn't receive an honest answer. She had hoped in one, knowing too well that Sybil had always had the tendency to bottle up her emotions even when they were more than obvious. She had learned to wait until Sybil brought up the matter herself, giving her sister all the time and space she needed. But for this once Mary broke her rule, because it looked far more serious than the other times Sybil had been distressed.

"Exhausted, but tiredness has become the main adjective with which I describe myself so it really doesn't come as something new. How are you Mary?" replied Sybil.

"I can't complain. I wanted to talk to you before dinner, which by the way will be in ten minutes time"

"Right. What is it?"

There were several questions Mary wanted to ask her - what the dream was about, how her life during the war had been, if something had happened to her personally - but in the end she asked

"Sybil, who is Tom?"

"No one" snapped Sybil.

"It didn't sound like that"

Oh God, what did she say in her sleep? Had she cried out for him?

"What do you really want Mary? A detailed description of my life in the last seven years? A list of people I've met in my life so that you can double-check them?"

"What's the matter with you? You don't need to give me a list, I don't care about it. But you are upset, and I want to help. If this Tom, whoever he is, hurt you then I'm going to..."

Tom hurt her; it was the most unrealistic thing ever.

"No, Mary. He didn't hurt me; he is a wonderful, wonderful man. We... I can't tell you the details of it"

Because no matter what story she would have made up at the moment, she could never explain why Tom wasn't there with her. He should have been with her, but he wasn't.

The pain and sorrow came back; Sybil snuggled closer to Mary and finally started to cry. She cried for herself, for Tom, for her and Tom, and for all the people who died in the last years. Everyone, and once she started she couldn't find the forces to stop.

Mary embraced her sister and began to gently stroke her hair.

"That's good Sybil. Let it out"

"I'm sorry Mary"

"Don't excuse yourself Sybil. I'm here to help you, if you want my help that is"

"Thank you. But I don't want to talk, I wish you knew but I can't talk"

"And I respect your decision. But there is one thing that I know already: it's going to be all right Sybil. Whatever it is, whoever he is, and whatever happened between you, you are going to sort it out" she reassured her sister.

_You are going to sort it out._ She really hoped so.

"Am I?"

"You are. I don't know him, but I know you. You are one of the best people I know; you are caring, intelligent, and passionate. No matter the obstacles, you have always fought for the future you wanted. You put something in that beautiful mind of yours and you do everything that you can do to realize it."

Sybil gave her sister a bright smile. Her sister's comforting words had helped to brighten up the situation. She had found a little faith in herself again, and it was exactly what she needed at the moment.

"Thank you Mary"

"I mean it. You will do it Sybil; you will put it all right again"

"You won't tell anyone"

"About your beau? No, I'll leave it to you when the time comes" Mary paused a moment "Which will come sooner than I think. You are going for him, aren't you?"

Sybil just shrugged and looked down blushing.

"I won't tell, and I won't try to stop you. You wouldn't listen anyway, but be careful and don't do anything rushed. Promise me"

"I promise"

"Good, now prepare yourself for dinner. And one last thing, Edith and I are going to take you to the station tomorrow. No excuses"


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Thank you Tammyteresa64 for the beta._

* * *

><p><strong>1945, the Beginning of a Journey and Mary's Letter<strong>

There wasn't complete light as Sybil exited Downton and sat down on her luggage, waiting for Edith to bring the car around and Mary to come out of the house. The air was chilly and Sybil snuggled closer in her coat, putting her hands in the pockets in order to keep them warm. As she did, she felt the crumpled paper of Tom's letter underneath her fingertips and for a moment she held it tight. The letter, she hoped it would have improved her momentary lack of knowledge; it must have been something important if Tom made the effort to encrypt it.

She could easily imagine the scene: Tom sitting on his bed or maybe on hers, deeply concentrated, trying to think about a base key to use. She could see his face clearly, the arched eyebrows, his teeth biting his lower lip... It was a face that had always made her laugh because it made him look vexed with what he had in front of him, no matter if it was a book or some crosswords. She actually discussed it with him once and Tom had just shrugged telling her "_Pardon me milady, but we can't all have shiny eyes and a big smile like you". _Though in her opinion shiny eyes and a big smile were better especially if someone was concentrating on something interesting and that he liked.

"Sybil?"

Mary's voice brought her back from her thoughts. Sybil stood up and turned around facing her sister who was standing there, her hand stretched out, handing her a white envelope.

"I've written you a letter, about some of the things I wanted to tell you yesterday and I didn't have the chance to say" continued Mary "Promise me you will read it"

"Mary..." Sybil tried to stop her, fearing that her sister might have given her bad news or something along that line. What if Mary had changed her mind? What if she was going to tell their parents about the real reason for which she was leaving for Ireland?

_Don't be silly. If she wanted to give you away she could have done it by now._

"No, listen: it's important to me that you read it. Oh look, there comes Edith"

Sybil nodded and tucked the envelope in her coat, picked up her luggage without any help from her sister and entered the car.

The three sisters spent the journey in silence. There was not enough time to discuss anything, and all their minds were wandering back to the last time Sybil had left Downton. It happened under similar circumstances, if one considered that both times Sybil was starting a journey to the life she wanted to live (the first time a simple life as a teacher and now a life with Tom), but last time Sybil had walked to the station alone.

She had preferred it that way, so that she could have the chance to think about recent events, about the things that had been said and those that had been left unsaid. Of the two options the second one was the one that hurt more.

When things were said out loud, made clear to her, she had the chance to answer back with honesty and sometimes with a little defiance. It only suited her father and her grandmother right, because after all those years they still didn't understand her. Her desire to learn more, to make something of herself, to have a real life where she could work and arrive tired at the end of the day, weren't things that happened from one day to the next. Those were things she had always dreamed about and there was nothing in the world that would stop her. All those talks about the fact that studying and teaching were not suited for a lady were useless, because _she didn't want to be a Lady._ But no matter how many times she had informed her father of it, he still liked to pretend that it wasn't so. If Robert Grantham would have grasped the point when he should have he would have known that all the threats he had made later were more than useless. Sybil had lost count of the times her father had threatened her by saying that he wouldn't give her any money, and she had lost the count of the number of times she had informed him that now that she had a job as a teacher she wouldn't need his money.

Oh no, the things that hurt her were those that had not been said. It wasn't even things said against her dream or against her, but simple statements that would have helped Sybil not to feel so alone. She was ready to burn the bridges, but she had hoped to not breakup the family. She had hoped that there was someone on her side, but after years of hopes the harsh reality became clear to her in less than a minute. All her life Mary had told her to be proud of who she was, to be proud of her beautiful mind and her dream to become a teacher but when the time had come, and Sybil had announced at dinner that she had indeed found a job in London, Mary hadn't said anything in her defense. Her father had screamed _If you walk through that door, don't bother coming back _and Mary did nothing but stare at the plate in front of her. Sybil had looked at her, tears in her eyes, silently pleading her to say something, to make her father see reason, to tell him all the things that she had said to her over the years. She wanted to yell at Mary, shake her and let the tears come out, trying to convince her by saying _Tell him! Tell him that I deserve to choose my own future_ but nothing. Mary had just sat there motionless.

Eight years later Sybil had completely forgiven both her sisters. She had come to terms with what happened and she had promised herself, seeing both Mary and Edith's attempts to keep in touch with her, not to push them away. She had achieved her dream and she was satisfied (teaching was really meant for her and seeing her students making progress day after day made her feel proud), and at the end there was really no grudge to hold against them. Maybe they hadn't spoken out for her, but they were her family and at the beginning were the only part of her family who accepted gladly the change in her life.

"We are here, I'll just park the car around the corner and we can all walk together" announced Edith.

"Have you got your ticket already? Or do you have to buy it?" asked Mary.

"I bought it yesterday as soon as I arrived. If you want to drive home... There's no need to walk me to the platform and wait for the train with me"

"Don't be silly darling, of course we will come with you. You can't get rid of us" replied Edith while she took Sybil's suitcase and carried it for her.

"Excellent, because you won't get rid of me either" Sybil replied.

"That's good news, now let's move before you arrive too late"

"So you are really leaving again"

"I am. It feels strange: after all these years, I come back and it's for less than twenty-four hours. But it is the right thing, I know that"

"It has always been Sybil. And we might have acted otherwise but we have always been convinced of it"

Sybil smiled and nodded.

"Just call us, or write, or I don't know... Just let us know from time to time how you are doing, and as soon as you know tell us when you might come back. We will wait for you, and no excuses accepted this time: we are coming by car to pick you up"

"Thank you"

"Oh come here" Edith stepped closer and hugged Sybil tightly, as she used to do when Sybil was just a little girl and woke up in the middle of the night after a bad dream. Neither Sybil nor Edith wanted to let go, both a little sad to have to part again but there wasn't the time, and Sybil made a mental note to herself that as soon as she found Tom and settled their plans for their future, she would spend a couple of days with her sisters to make up for lost time.

"We will see each other soon, won't we?"

"We will. I'm not going away for forever. I won't live at Downton but we will see each other again" Sybil promised.

Then it was Mary's turn, who whispered in Sybil's ear "I'll keep my promise if you keep yours. Don't do anything stupid Syb. And read my letter, please"

"I will do both things Mary" replied Sybil.

"You don't have to worry, everything is going to be fine. I am going to be fine"

"We know Syb. Now go"

"I love you both"

"Now go!"

Sybil stepped on the train and made her way to the compartment through the small corridor. It was a six compartment and for now only occupied by a little girl and her mother (presumably) both of them fast asleep. She moved as quietly as possible and placed her luggage above her seat before sitting down, freeing herself from her coat and trying to find a comfortable position.

She took Mary's letter in her hands, taking a moment to look at it before opening it and took out several pieces of paper which she unfolded. Mary's handwriting was as usual elegant and neat, nothing like her own that was often untidy and too little to read. When she was little she had envied Mary's handwriting and she had tried to copy her, with great success to tell the truth. But Sybil preferred her own because it permitted her to write in a hurry without letting any of the ideas go away before she had fixed them on paper.

The sight of the comprehensible words one after the other, on the different lines was another thing that made Sybil smile. It was a relief, if compared to Tom's code that was just a random series of letters one after the other. For once, in years, Sybil had in front of her a clear piece of communication and had nothing else to do but read it.

And so in the shadows of a train compartment in a train headed to Liverpool, Sybil Crawly, slightly leaning against the window, started to read her sister's words.

_My dear Sybil,_

_There are many things I wanted to tell you before your departure for Ireland but, given the small amount of time we had, a letter will have to do. Some of the things that follow I would have preferred to say to you in person, I guess a conversation would have been better since it would have permitted questions and explanations when and if they were needed. Alas it's impossible, unless I waited for your return but I couldn't wait so here I am, writing a letter that most certainly will sound a little incoherent._

_Sybil, I gave you my word not to tell anyone the real reason for your journey and I will keep my word. I let you go with a smile on my face, encouraging you and wishing you all the best luck in the world and I mean it, I really do. But even if I mean it, even if I am happy that you have somebody who I am sure truly deserves you (but I will talk about that later) I can't deny that I am scared and worried for you. I will always be, you will always be my baby sister even if you are now all grown up (though I must admit that you often acted more grown up than Edith and I did). You are an independent woman, a wonderful person and I am proud of you, but I can't help but see you as the child you once were and as your older sister I still feel as if I need to protect you. Of course it's seems a ridiculous idea, considering that you have lived on your own all these years without any help from anyone and making it just fine. You are capable of looking after yourself, and my job isn't really required. _

_My job, as if I did it well in the last years... Tell me: am I a failure as sister? It feels like it. _

_Every time I was meant to stay by your side, I failed miserably. I feel guilty for it, for the fact that I didn't say anything that night when papa told you that you didn't have to come back if you left for London. I should have and I didn't. I didn't miss your look that night, you looked at papa with all the calm in the world and then at me with tears in your eyes ready to scream 'Mary, tell him! Say something for me' and yet I didn't, I just lowered my sight onto the table pretending that I didn't agree with you, pretending that it didn't matter. _

_But it did matter, it has always mattered ever since you were just a kid. A kid that spent her free time either running to the garage to have Pratt teach you something about motors and how they worked, all the details, all the information that would have been stored up in that brain of yours and came out in the most surprising moments And poor Pratt he didn't really know what to explain to you. How it worked yes, but you were so thirsty for information that at some point even he had to give up. You have always tried to involve me and Edith without much success. You always threatened us saying that you would never talk to us again, but you always found yourself unable to resist and came to us and made peace, asking us about our wishes and curiosities that, no doubt, you must have found boring. _

_Should we have tried at least a little to catch up with your interests? Should we have answered just for once 'of course' when we were asked to come and seek information with you'? I don't think we would have been such pleasant company in that case._

_After your trips to the garage came the books. Journeys to Ripon became your adventure and while Edith and me wanted to try a new frock you silently followed us everywhere and obeyed mama's orders with the promise that you could have bought a new book. Mama hadn't realized that soon you would abandon novels in favor of some university text books about mathematics or physics or anything else that could have capture your interest... And it went on for years, until papa found out. _

_Papa's face! That grim of horror with a little disgust, and granny's request of Carson to bring her some salts, all the discussions about you not being ladylike enough, until you proudly admitted 'Fine, I don't want to be a Lady'. Now that was - is - my sister, and when you said it out loud I just wanted to applaud you but, again, I didn't. Sometimes it feels as if our relationship was nothing more than a series of things that I didn't do and it is actually scary to suppose so._

_Sybil, you never fit into the life that was given to you, everyone understood it at some point. It only took papa a lot more time, and when he did... Lord Merton was at Downton for dinner, and at some point (I really can't recall the reasons) you started to explain him how an engine worked. I guess that was the breaking point, because from that moment on papa started with all those arguments about the fact that you should stop showing off, gaining knowledge and then sharing it that is. As if you did it on purpose. How silly papa was, and how narrow-minded, in thinking that no man would want a too smart wife. _

_You see what he failed to recognize was the fact that that was you, the entire Sybil Crawley package. And speaking between us any man that doesn't love you for what you are (brain included) doesn't love you at all._

_I know that all of this doesn't sound new to you, I told you the same things over and over again in the past, and when it really mattered I didn't say anything. But I've never changed my mind, all the things I said were true. I was just a coward in not speaking out._

_But you have made it, a lack of support didn't stop you, and I am proud of the person you have become. Which makes me think: does Tom know how lucky he is? I hope so._

_Sybil,I don't know what to think of him. You haven't told me anything about him or about how you two met and why he wasn't with you when you arrived back to Downton, or better why didn't you speak about him with the others. You haven't even mentioned his name! Oh Sybil, sometimes I do wish to know what goes on in that funny brain of yours. The things you hold back, the things you hide... It isn't to be nosy, I really just want to help you. And here we are again, with me afraid for you: what happened with Tom? Who even is Tom? Does he make you happy Sybil? That's really the only thing that matters. If he makes you happy, and he loves you with all his heart and he respects you than you have my blessing, thought it would be too late to stop you anyway, after all you are a Crawley and when we stick something in our head we do everything to make it come true. _

_So go Sybil, go to Ireland, find Tom and be terribly, terribly happy._

_And let him know that if he mistreats you I will kill him myself._

_I wish you luck, and I admit that I let you go as a sort of amends for the last time. But at the same time I think you deserve it, that you have proven to everybody that you can take care of yourself. So I put my trust in you and if something, anything, goes wrong tell us. Because we will be there in case you need us. I will be there and this time, I promise that I won't let you down._

_With love,_

_Mary_

Sybil wasn't exactly convinced about how she should react to her sister's words. The letter had made her smile and cry. Her sister's trust and best wishes meant a lot, if they weren't there it wouldn't have been a problem because she wouldn't have cared and continued her journey anyway, but reading about Mary being on her side (whether or not it was caused by what happened in the past was unimportant at the moment) gave Sybil a great joy and if they had talked face to face the day before she would have screamed 'I forgive you, you silly thing' at the top of her lungs. Had Mary really lived all this years blaming herself for what had happened, when in reality Sybil had accepted it and decided to start again never holding a grudge against her sister? It must have been painful for her.

"Is it good news?" a voice beside her said.

Sybil turned around and saw the little girl looking at her curiously.

"Emma leave the Lady alone" her mother scolded her.

"No, it's all right. It is good news, very good news"

"I thought so. You didn't seem sad when you were crying. Ma did the same thing when Pa came back... Is that your boyfriend?" the girl asked pointing at the letter.

"No, it's from my sister. There was something she wanted to say to me, something about a situation that occurred between us years ago"

"I'm so sorry, Miss. Emma come here I could use your help with these crosswords" the mother said, trying to distract her daughter and giving Sybil some space for herself. The girl sighed and rolled her eyes but obeyed her mother, and sat down quietly.

Sybil smiled again, but as the woman mentioned the crosswords Sybil couldn't help but think about it. Because it all started with crosswords, more or less...


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: As usual thank you Tammyteresa64 for the beta._

* * *

><p><strong>1940, a Job Offer<strong>

Sybil was sitting uncomfortably on an armchair in Mr. Charles Blake's office. Her palms were slightly sweating out of nervousness and every now and then, she would discreetly wipe them on her skirt as if she was just brushing away some invisible crinkle.

Charles Blake wasn't paying much attention to her, despite having escorted her personally to his office when she arrived in the reception room, and having cordially offered her something to drink, he was now deeply immersed in a pile of paper as if he had forgotten her presence. He muttered something between himself as his eyes wandered through the pages, as if he was reading a list - Sybil couldn't be sure, given her position she wasn't able to see - and every now and then he let out a sigh, perhaps in frustration. At first Sybil had carefully studied the room, a room that pretty much resembled Matthew's study back at Downton, giving much attention to the bronze plate on his desk. But there was only so much that she could look at and Sybil found herself without something to look at rather quickly and that's when she started to think about all the possible reasons behind her presence in that room.

To what was it all connected? If Sybil Crawley had to make a guess and give a short and satisfying answer to the question, she would have used one single word: crosswords.

Of course she couldn't be one hundred percent sure, but that was the only thing that she had done different in the last couple of weeks from her usual routine. Her taking part in a crosswords race was the only event in her life to which she could have connected her interview with the government. If it wasn't so, it was all a big and strange coincidence. Why on earth should the government be interested in her? Not to count the fact that the timing of her receiving the announcement of her victory and the letter telling her to report that afternoon to Mr. Blake's office on Mansfield Road was too perfect to be just a coincidence. The question was: what was about to happen?

That a job offer was about to come had been a thought that had crossed her mind but, once more, it seemed too strange to be true. And even if it was a job offer, how was it connected to the race? What did it have to do with crosswords, and why was it being so mysterious? What had she just been dragged into?

So many questions and no sign of an answer. No deduction could be made, no theory. Nothing, for once her mind was completely blank. There were missing pieces in the setting of the scenery, important pieces that would have connected all the small things giving her, in the end, a clear view of everything and making her understand all the action-reaction connection. Perhaps the greatest mystery of all, the first clue to which Sybil was oblivious wasn't whether the government was behind the advertising in the different newspapers but whether or not Sarah Bunting knew something that Sybil didn't. Some connection, anything really that had made her make the decision to tell Sybil about the race.

Because yes, she was probably sitting there because of the crosswords, but everything started with Sarah Bunting whether or not her friend's actions had been deliberate due to further knowledge, or completely casual.

Sarah Bunting was one of Sybil friends and colleagues. Approximately of the same age, and with similar political opinions the two of them had had a rough beginning. When Sybil first arrived at the school, where she had received the position as maths teacher, the two of them couldn't really stand each other. Sybil's arrival had been seen by Sarah as a waste of money and time, since she would get tired of it as soon as she realized that the harsh reality (of what Sarah called _the real world_) was completely different from her expectations. What could an earl's daughter know about everyday life? How could Sybil even think about how it was really going to be? No doubt she would soon get tired of it, leaving them with a vacancy. It had been snobbish on Sarah's side to assume this just because Sybil was indeed the youngest daughter of the Earl of Grantham and had lived her entire life, until that moment, in a golden cage. Making judgments and nasty remarks because of it, ignoring Sybil's will power and quick adaption to her new life, not to mention the fact that Sybil herself didn't like her background and position in society either, wasn't fair to Sybil. But two could play that game and one day Sybil just snapped back at Sarah, telling her to stop seeing her as an emblem of a social class and start to see her as a person. And from that moment on they had started to try to get along, until eventually the two of them had become friends.

A couple of weeks earlier Sarah had brought Sybil the latest edition of the 'Daily Telegraph', opened on a page that announced a crosswords' race. She had placed it in front of her, announcing '_Posh genius, you have to take part in this! Who know you could even win it'. _Sybil in the end decided to take part in it, without even hoping in a positive outcome on the first round let alone being selected for the finals.

She probably should have known that there was something wrong, something _different, _when she went to the finals. Unlike the other times, when the participants just had to send their answers by post, this time they had to make the test in a predetermined room and in a determined amount of time. In their case it had been ten minutes, though Sybil managed to finish her schedule in six minutes ish. But even if she took a little time she didn't have much faith in the result (though the men's faces as she handed in her paper, with their bewilderment and stupor, made her want to have gotten all the answers correct just to rub her success in their faces). She didn't have much faith and, because she never imagined that that race would have led to a job offer, she kept on with her plan of becoming a nurse.

She had had the intention to become a nurse ever since the war had broken out. Her first thought about what her condition in the new and terrible set of events was that she would do her best to make herself useful. Perhaps becoming a nurse wasn't exactly what she wanted to do (being a teacher was just fine and she had discovered that she actually enjoyed it more than anything), mathematics and physics where still her field but as far as she knew, books and her knowledge wouldn't take her far away and wouldn't be useful skills during a war (no matter how long it was supposed to last). No, being a nurse would put her in the position of being helpful and consequentially she put her books to the side and started researching possible courses she could attend. It wasn't forever, she would do her part and then in the end she would return to them. It wasn't really a sacrifice, and perhaps she would end up enjoying herself by discovering a new field of knowledge. Until that moment she had never thought about trying it out. But she didn't get the chance to find out because, on the morning she was making the trip to the hospital to get some information regarding her planned course and sign up, she found a letter in the mail box announcing her victory and another one that expressed the desire of the government to offer her a job. And so her career as a nurse ended even before it had started, and she found herself in that room.

Charles Blake cleared his throat and looked at Sybil. He pushed the papers aside, opened a drawer , took a check and started to fill it out before handing it to Sybil.

"This is what we owe you. Congratulations"

"Thank you, Sir"

"Your results were pretty incredible. But do tell me, is there any connection between you and the Crawleys in Yorkshire?"

"I'm the youngest daughter of the Earl of Grantham"

_Though I'm not sure if he still considers me his daughter._

"I see. Any intention of going back to Yorkshire any time soon?"

"No sir. I didn't leave in the most peaceful terms and even if I did, I had the intention of becoming a nurse here in London. There's a war going on, I want to do my part"

"The war, Miss Crawley, is a war we are not winning" pointed out Charles Blake.

"And what has that to do with me being here?" asked Sybil bluntly.

She wanted answers and explanations that would make everything clear and she wanted to have them in that exact moment. No more of the compliments or questions about her family and intentions. If this was going to end with a job offer or any sort of requests on the government side than she wanted to hear it right away.

"I will tell you right away but first - be warned - that if you speak a single word of what I'm about to tell you, you will be executed for high treason. Do you understand?"

Sybil nodded. Charles Blake didn't look intimidating but at the same time she felt a bit surprised with his answer. She was intrigued. What sort of thing was she about to be dragged into? Whatever it was, she didn't have many people with whom she could talk to anyway, she was quiet by nature, but there was also a war going on (as her interlocutor had so neatly pointed out) and right now she certainly had other things to talk about rather than her private life.

Mr. Blake opened his fountain pen, put it on the paper in front of him and handed everything to Sybil.

"If you could sign here" he said as he pointed out a free line at the end of the page "It's a secrecy oath, Miss Crawley"

Sybil did as she was told, after having quickly read through the page.

"Excellent. Have you ever heard of Bletchley Park?"

"No"

"We should hope so; it would be worrying if you knew about what was going on. Still, it's the central stationing of the Government Code and Cipher School, station X, they call it. And we want you to work for us, there at Bletchley"

"As a code breaker? I'm not sure if I am the right person for it"

"Why shouldn't you. First of all you won this thing, making it more than clear that you have a _talent _for this sort of thing and if we are correct, mathematics is your field, isn't it?"

Hardly. She had never been to university, all her knowledge came from books and she could hardly be called an expert. Why her, when there were many coming directly out of universities like Cambridge? She wasn't a mathematician, she was a girl who understood things and was good at it but nothing more. No important mathematician, no well-known genius who had produced a series of new discoveries already. She was a small person, an ordinary person and as much as she was thrilled at the idea that someone was interested in her talents, it all seemed too unreal.

"I teach maths, and I have studied as autodidact. But my level of knowledge, despite being comparable to one of a university student, has never been made official. I have never been to university that is"

"We already know that"

"Of course"

"And it is irrelevant. There will be supervision at Bletchley, and I am sure that with the right preparation you will manage to walk with your own feet soon enough. Miss Crawley, can we trust you?"

"Yes"

"Excellent, you will start on Monday"


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: As usual thank you Tammyteresa64 for the beta._

* * *

><p><strong>1940, a Decision To Make<strong>

Sybil was lying on the bed in the small room they had assigned to her at Mr. Brandbridge's, a small house with seven rooms, two bathrooms, and a kitchen. It was one of the many houses that surrounded Bletchley Park that had been converted into temporary lodgings for Bletchley employees. She was staring at the ceiling, and by now she was sure she had memorized even the smallest details of it: the way that the cracks formed an irregular pattern just above the wardrobe, the wallpaper coming off from the corners... She could have traced a map by heart, and not only of the ceiling.

Truth was she was bored, her mind completely uneasy and more awake than ever, Sybil felt as if she could have died of boredom that same moment. She hadn't brought any books with her, she had told herself over and over again that they would be useless, not when she had so many new things to learn about and to keep up with in order to do her new job at her very best.

Ha! Her new job.

If she wasn't so upset she might have laughed out loud and never stopped. Because wasn't the whole situation the most hilarious thing that she had ever lived? Hadn't she witnessed the most exhilarant display of human character?

It all seemed a joke. A prank, cruel and upsetting towards her, but a prank nonetheless.

Sybil snorted and stood up, grabbing her nightgown from under the pillow and throwing it towards the wall. A nightgown wasn't enough, but it had to do. Nothing would have been enough anyway if one excluded the option of slapping every single man of higher rank that worked at Bletchley and organized things, repetitively.

Because they had lied to her. Her whole recruitment, her contract was nothing but a big fat lie. Code breaking her ass, as soon as she arrived on Monday they had put her behind a desk to do secretarial work. Whose decision had it been anyway? Charles Blake's perhaps? Then why bother telling her everything about code breaking and wishing her good luck? Why not just tell her that they needed a secretary at Bletchley?

Instead she had arrived only to find out the truth.

Well she wouldn't have done it.

She was sick of it, and the way that they were treating her. One week and she had been angered beyond imagination. One week after her arrival she had realized the extent of it, and decided to keep waiting, hoping for a change, but nothing had happened.

It wasn't the secretarial work per se. No, if asked from the beginning Sybil might have even accepted to do it. It was the fact that they had fooled her, that they were taking advantage of her position as woman. Would they have done the same had she been a man? Would they have been deceitful in such a shameless way and without asking her or at least inform her of it? She doubted it.

The whole story was driving her nuts. Not only for her rage or because of the way they had tricked her but because the more she thought about the situation, the more images of what she could have done instead came to her mind. A life outside of Bletchley, being a nurse in London and actually feeling useful at the end of her day. Feeling _tired _at the end of her day.

Sybil turned her face over onto the pillow which muffled her scream as she let it out.

She had absolutely no clue what to do next.

Should she say something?

Should she wait a little bit more?

She didn't have a clue. If only there was someone she could talk to, but she didn't have any friends, not yet at least, and who knew what they might think of her if she went to one of her housemates and started to talk about what bothered her. They might think her a little presumptuous, or maybe they would just be uninterested. After all there was a war going on, there were more important matters to think about. And surely she wasn't the only one that had been forced to do a job they didn't find attractive or interesting, or that they had been promised.

Sarah, that would have been the right person to talk to. But Sarah wasn't here, was she? She was in London doing... that Sybil couldn't tell.

But it wasn't a question about what others would do. The question was: what would Sybil Crawley do?

It was entirely her choice.

Could she live the following months, years even, doing something that she didn't like? Was she ready to let it go, and just forget about everything that had happened? Could she adjust to her situation and just leave it be?

No.

Yes.

No.

Sybil wasn't able to make up her mind.

Yes, she was angry.

Yes, she was bored.

Yes, the situation was driving her mad.

But saying something, doing something, seemed a little too selfish.

Sybil got up from the bed, reached the wardrobe and took out her coat and hat. She got ready and made her way out of the house. She didn't intend to walk towards Bletchley. There was a path she used during her free time that was a long way around the fields that surrounded Mr. Brandbridge's, but instead of turning left as she always did, she turned right as she did when she was headed to work.

She took her time, making the walk last fifteen minutes longer than usual, but in the end there they were: the huts of Bletchley.

_Just talk to them. At least you can say you tried._

With a new self-awareness, Sybil stormed to the head office. She knocked on the door, before they answered she opened it and walk in.

"Miss Crawley, what can I do for you?" The man behind the desk asked.

"I need to talk to you about something urgent"

"Sit down"

Sybil did as she was told.

"I did not come to Bletchley in order to do secretarial work" she started "The contract I signed said that I had been recruited to work on the codes, it stated that my work here would be code-breaking, but since my arrival I haven't seen one code. I just sit behind a desk. I want an explanation for it"

For a moment she and the director looked at each other, silently. An answer didn't come, so Sybil just kept talking, now that she had found the courage to do so, now that she had found the words, there was no way to stop her.

"Is it because I've never been to university?" she asked.

That was another option that she had thought about when she had tried to justify what had happened. It was a plausible excuse, after all why should they train her when there were people coming directly out of Cambridge who had enough mathematical knowledge to do the work directly?

"Or even better, is it because I am a _woman_?"

No answer still, though the man looked puzzled and surprised. She couldn't blame him for being surprised, had she been in his shoes she would have probably reacted the same as him if one of her employees walked in to her office demanding questions and making accusations.

"I may not be a well-known mathematician sir, but I am as worthy as the rest of them. And if you don't step back to our original agreement, I will leave at once"

The last part was a risk and she knew it. They probably wouldn't have cared if she stayed or not, they could easily recruit somebody else, somebody that perhaps wouldn't make any complaints about the position he was put in. They didn't even need to worry about her knowing what was going on at Station X, she had signed an oath of secrecy and she could be accused of high-treason should she ever open her mouth and reveal highly, confidential secrets.

They probably wouldn't lose anything if she walked away.

It was something they could afford.

"And what makes you think that your presence is vital?"

"I do not think my presence vital, to the contrary I am more than sure that I can be replaced easily" admitted Sybil. "But you went through the process of making those crossword races, and I'm sure that you could have hired the next person to do the kind of work I'm doing now. It's not even this, it is the fact that you offered me one job and assigned me another, without informing me. All this without a reason. So either you explain the whole situation to me, or you change my working post, or I'll walk away. Good evening"

Sybil got up and walked away not bothering to look back or wait for any kind of answer.

Three days later she was called to the head office. At first she was scared that they would sack her, that her behavior of three days prior had upset them, that she had stepped over the line taking too many liberties in the way she had acted, than she was allowed to. She entered afraid, and was very much surprised that the director wasn't the only person in the room.

There were two other men, and on the desk, where usually there were piles of paper, a wooden box was placed.

"Miss Crawley" they welcomed her.

She stepped closer, and the men opened the box revealing a machine that was very similar to a typewriter were it not distinguished by a set of rotors, a plug board and a double set of alphabetical letters.

"Welcome to enigma"


	5. Chapter 5

_A/N: As usual thank you Tammyteresa64 for the beta._

* * *

><p><strong>1945, Starting To Break the Code<strong>

"Dinner will be served at seven. Should you need something before or after that hour, you just have to ask me" said the woman behind the counter, giving Sybil a kind smile before turning around and taking a pair of keys from the pin-board behind her "It's the first room on the right, as soon as you climb the stairs"

"Thank you" replied Sybil, smiling back, and taking the keys in her hand before grabbing her luggage again "I'll be down at seven sharp"

"Have a nice stay"

"I will" were the last words she said before making her way up to her room.

Sybil was exhausted. She had arrived in Dublin in the early afternoon and, before finding this bed and breakfast on the outskirts of Dublin, she had spent hours wandering around and looking for a place to stay that would meet her demands, which were only to be free to stay for as long as she wanted and not spend a fortune. The part about the money was, perhaps, a little more unnecessary than the request of staying for however long as she wanted. Whereas she had money in her name (mainly everything she had gathered through the years, and the allowance - money that till that day had been left untouched - that her grandfather had left her when he died) that she could use in case of necessity, she had absolutely no clue how long it would take her to decipher Tom's code.

Hours? Days? Weeks? Heavens, she hoped that it would be a reasonable amount of time! But she couldn't be sure of that. After all she couldn't be sure of anything - the amount of time that she would need, not even if she could decipher it all - and she had to embrace every possibility, among which was the one that she and Tom would never see each other again.

Was she ready for it? Absolutely not. And although she was sure that Tom wrote to her convinced that she could make it, that she could find the keys, Sybil knew far too well that nothing was certain. It didn't matter how smart she was, it didn't matter that she had done this sort of thing for five years -ish, the odds were not necessarily in her favor.

The door of her room opened with a loud creak, something that made Sybil giggle (if someone would have passed at that moment, no doubt they would have thought her to be mad) because, apparently, she had quite alot of bad luck when it came down to doors functioning properly. Back in London her door didn't close properly, at Bletchley one had to push it up before pulling it open otherwise it wouldn't move and now it creaked.

She was laughing because of a door. It was surely one of the lowest moments in her life, but she didn't care.

Sybil stepped into the room, leaving her luggage beside the door and looking at her surroundings. It wasn't bad, she had seen worse things. Small, but then again it didn't matter considering that she would use it mainly to sleep and as a place where she could work in quietness and peace, with the basic furniture (a bed, a wardrobe and a night table) and an attached bathroom. It definitely would do. Before doing anything Sybil took off her shoes and threw herself upon the bed, sighing out of relief for finally having the chance to rest and to lay on a comfortable and soft place. After all the hours she had spent sitting on a train and then on the ferry, and later walking through Dublin, it felt like heaven.

Sybil lay there, looking outside the window at first but then she stopped caring, or rather she got distracted and her mind started to wander about Tom.

What was he doing? Where was he? Was he _safe_?

She couldn't say how much time she spent like that, but when she got up again she felt a great deal better than she had before. Sybil proceeded to put her things in the right paces: she took a set of spare clothes to change into, she placed her nightgown on the bed, hung up her coat and placed the rest of her clothes in the wardrobe, and then she made her way to the bathroom.

Washing all the tiredness and dirt from the journey away felt like a regeneration, and with a clear head, a new set of clothes on and not as fatigued as she was before, Sybil felt a new confidence and resolution bloom inside her. Things didn't seem as bleak and dark as they did before, and the comfy and friendly room that she had, seemed the perfect quiet place where she could work in peace.

Tom's letter was recuperated by Sybil from its place in her coat, and taken to the bed. She opened it, looking at the jumble of letters written, with Tom's neat handwriting, on the paper. A series of letters, not even interrupted by a blank space. She was very accustomed to this sort of thing, and oh it brought back memories.

Looking at the note, Sybil tried to imagine Tom writing it, maybe lying on his bed back at Mr. Brandbridge's, biting his lower lip as he always did when he was concentrating, thinking about keys and settings that she could guess as soon as she started to analyze the message.

But other questions filled her mind: when did he write it? It must have been just before he left Bletchley, or maybe when the circle of the investigations had started to close around him. What if he had written it on the day of the accusation, holding it by him when and if the wrong circumstances occurred? It must have been that way. Tom had never been impulsive and he certainly wouldn't have left to hazard a matter as delicate as this one.

Sybil knew that he had an accurate plan, this must have been part of it. But if he had a plan, no matter how detailed it was, why not tell her? Why not inform her of the basics of what was going to happen next?

_For your own safety, you know that._

Oh she knew, she knew far too well. But somehow the risks were not as scary as the idea of not knowing what had happened to him. When she had been at Bletchley she had accepted the fact that Tom wanted to keep the description of his movements secret (from her it was fine from the beginning, but him keeping information from the higher ranks and investigators was something that she didn't find as acceptable. After all if there was nothing to hide, if it could have actually discredited the accusations made against him, why withhold it?), but now that everything was over she wanted answers.

The missing pieces in the general set of events, that started with a discovery of leaked information and that had ended with Tom's disappearance, were too many and everything had happened too quickly to even try to connect or investigate by herself.

Domino pieces falling one after the other, causing an unstoppable chain of events that had ended only when everything had crashed down.

Too many secrets, in a place where secrets were not allowed.

But Sybil had her secret too, hadn't she? She was in possession of an item, that should have remained where she had taken it. It was a device that she wasn't even supposed to have, because having it was going against the rules they had made her sign and could have probably been summarized as treason. Nothing from Bletchley could to be taken out of Bletchley, out of secrecy and security that was, but Sybil had done it.

It had been risky, if someone had discovered her sneaking away with it, it would probably have meant the end of her. And although there had been moments - around the time Tom had disappeared - when she had feared that they would catch her, that they would look even more carefully everywhere to see whether she knew something about Tom and what she was hiding, she managed to get away with it.

The thought of stealing it had never been her intention in first place, probably, if things would have gone a little bit differently, she wouldn't have needed it anyway. Who knew how things would have been? A set of events that wouldn't have brought her to this hotel on the outskirts of Dublin, a set of events that wouldn't have forced her away from Tom.

But it was useless wasn't it, to think about how differently things might have been? After all they were living this situation and there was no way to go back in time.

Sybil grabbed the wooden box from beside the bed and placed it on the bed, right in front of her. She looked at it and smiled, as her hands wandered on the slightly ruined surface, only to stop at the two locks in the front. The locks made a loud click as she opened them and Sybil already felt the usual feeling of thrill and excitement as she pushed the cover backwards to reveal the contents of it.

Sybil could have squealed for delight. All those years, and she still felt the same as when she had been summoned to the director's room the day they had finally promoted her to cryptanalyst.

_The Enigma Machine._

One of the greatest encryption devices in history. It created multi-poli-alphabetical substitution ciphers and converted a readable message into an unreadable one, that would have then been transmitted via Morse to another sector that settled their enigmas in the same way and deciphered it.

Built by Arthur Scheribus right after the end of World War I, it was meant to be used in a commercial environment to encrypt commercial companies' documents in order to keep business' transactions secret from the enemies. The machine, placed on the free market thus making it a purchase for everyone who could afford it, didn't have a big success. A success came in 1930 (and on) when the army forces of several countries (but in particular the German one) had bought it and started to use it to encrypt military information.

And it was the German navy that actually managed to improve the working of the machine, making it much more powerful than the original had been.

A normal Enigma, as it had been originally designed by Scheribus himself, was made of a set of rotors, a battery, a keyboard and a lamp-board. What happened when the machine was turned on was that, whenever a letter on the keyboard was pressed, electricity flow through the electrical circuit formed by all the other parts of enigma and ended up lighting a letter on the lamp-board. The letter that lit up was the encrypted letter if someone was encrypting a message, or the original one if someone was deciphering a code.

But with the machine working this way, the code could have been broken using hand methods, which was something that would have put the security of army messages at great risk. So what the German army did was add a plug board to the front panel of the machine. It contained twenty-six holes (each one marked with a letter of the alphabet) that had to be connected in couples through plugs, the couples could have been thirteen but only ten were used, in order to increase the number of possible permutations, of the possible connections, from eight billion to one-hundred and fifty billion.

The plug panel made sure that before a letter was being encrypted, it was being swapped with the one it was connected to right before it entered the rotor scrambling unit. This way the letter was encrypted more than just once before having the final result.

The total number of all the possible permutations that enigma produced were 158,962,555,217,360,000 depending on the rotors that were being used (one had to choose three out of five, and had to place them in a specific order beside the battery), the start setting of the rotors (that had twenty-six letters upon them, multiplied for three rotors) and the possibilities in the associations on the plug board.

But the numbers of permutations didn't mean that Enigma was unbreakable.

The first ones who succeeded in breaking the Enigma code were an élite of Polish mathematicians and cryptanalysts who through a process of reversed engineering the machine, identified the patterns in the Enigma code. It had all been a theoretical application but, by the time they managed to get their hands on copies of the German Enigma machine, were found to be true and permitted them to discover seventy-five percent of German military secrets.

But in 15th December 1938 the Nazis made radical changes: two more rotors were added to the original three. The possibilities to set the rotors were now sixty and the costs to keep on working on the decipherment became higher and higher, making it unimaginable for the Polish army to be able to finance this plan in such a short time.

The Polish Cipher Bureau therefore reached out to the nation's potential allies: Britain and France.

A deal was made.

On 1st September 1939 Poland was invaded. All the people involved with Enigma were evacuated, and ended up on the run covering Romania, Italy before arriving in France. Here (October 1939) they were given new positions, and the opportunity to continue their work on cracking Enigma. They met Alan Turing, who brought them a complete set of Zygalski's perforated sheets as had been accorded months earlier. On that meeting Turing was shown how they managed to break the code.

Again it was all short lived. On May 1940 France was invaded, and the poles were evacuated again (first they fled to Algeria, they then moved to Vichy where they didn't have enough material to work on anymore. Years later only a couple of people of the original polish élite of code breakers made it to London).

Back in Britain Alan Turing continued their work, and discovered the biggest flaw in the Enigma machine (that ironically was supposed to be its greatest advantage): Enigma never encrypted a letter as itself.

The number of permutations dropped considerably.

This and the fact that Germans always started their messages with the same words (and sometimes forgot to change settings from one day to the next) were some of the advantages for the decipherment. But it was the weather forecast on the Atlantic that gave the British the first major breakthrough. It always had the same format: wind-speed, atmosphere-pressure and temperature. The layout gave Turing the idea to use the so-called cribs, guesses about what at least part of the message was saying (making the messages and the cribs slide until there were no matches). Even then it was impossible to decipher the message by hand.

Turning therefore developed the idea of a machine (the bombes) that reverted the Enigma process, and went though all the possible numbers of permutations until it found the basic setting that had been used by the enemies.

Yes, it had been broken.

But that didn't help Sybil any further. Right now, the machine was unbreakable, at least for her. She didn't know which of the five rotors to use, in which order to place them, which setting to start from and the collocation of the plugs

If this wouldn't lead her to Tom, if she hadn't the certainty that she might actually have found the right pattern thus creating a sense out of that madness that was the letters in front of her, Sybil wouldn't have tried at all.

"Madness" she whispered.

And it really was, but if Tom had written it, he had meant her to read it, consequentially he must have used keys that she could find easily or if not she could have reached a conclusion.

"Damn it Tom!" she whispered "Why did you have to make everything so difficult?"

_Something I know. Something we talked about._

Had they ever talked about Enigma? Not that she recalled, or at least not outside work.

No one talked of the work he did at the park outside of it, not between colleagues of the same hut and especially not with someone working in another one. It was one of the rules that existed there, and it wasn't really a problem. As far as she was concerned, from the moment she had learned everything that she needed to learn and had acquired the necessary skills she even stopped exercising herself or and didn't read books about the matter when she was alone in her room. She tried to distance herself from everything that happened during her shifts, it was a way to maintain sanity.

Bletchley was a place outside of the world, where time was just standing still and it was a place of codes and riddles and urgency or at least that's how she had lived the entire experience. She loved her work, she loved being a cryptanalyst, she was one of the best, and she had learned so much from everything. Her mind worked quicker, she was quicker in grasping concepts in her work and it was a welcomed sensation but it also exhausted her. Nine hour long shifts, passed looking at letters trying to figure out all the basic schemes that had to be put into the bombes before they could try out all the permutations until arriving to the final base code that would have permitted the decryption of German messages.

But if she hadn't talked about work before, nothing had changed when Tom arrived. First as friend, then as lover, and later as fiancé. There was a silent mutual understanding to leave work out.

Heavens! She had never realized how many things they had never discussed.

The pile of things she wanted to tell him seemed to get bigger every hour that passed.

And so were the number of things she wanted to put right.

Sybil wanted to find him, to keep the promise they had made to each other.

But all those stories she was creating, all the tears that she might have shed, all the regrets, were not going to help her, not in the least. There was one way to put everything right and it started with deciphering Tom's code. That was the solution to everything, the beginning of a new part of her life possibly and she would not give up, not for the world. She would stay here and try all the possible ideas, recalling all the conversations she and Tom had had until she solved the puzzle. She was good with them, she was smart, and she had buckets full of determination. She was one of the first women that had received a good position at work, someone who asked for it pointing her feet and refused to bulge. So no, she wouldn't give up, on the contrary she, Sybil Crawley, would crack the code and reach Tom again.

She set the machine on, stretched out her arms and legs, found a comfortable position, and took out the rotors from their box and the same with the plugs, organizing her work space as neatly as possible. She took a deep breath and tried to free her mind from everything that was unnecessary as she tried to focus on just one thing.

"Let's begin shall we?" she whispered to the machine (feeling a little bit ridiculous in doing so, but uncaring considering that there was no one that could hear her anyway)


	6. Chapter 6

**_A/N: Thank you Tammyteresa64 for the beta._**

**1941, Tom Branson**

Curved on her desk, with one hand holding her fountain pen and with the other massaging her temple, Sybil Crawley was going through her daily work. She was feeling unwell, her head felt like it was going to explode any minute now, her stomach kept twisting and she had both a back and stomach ache. She was trying to concentrate, to stop her vision from being blurry and not to let her mind wander.

It was one o'clock, three hours and her shift would be finished. Three hours, that wasn't an enormous amount of time considering that she had already worked for five of the eight-hour-long shift, was it?

It wasn't but in her current condition it might as well have been an eternity.

It usually didn't happen. She enjoyed her work, it never bothered her to do it (except for a couple of times) and she always ended up concentrating so much that she didn't feel the time passing. It was her and the codes, everything else became irrelevant until she stopped when the eight-hour shift over.

Her work... She loved it!

More than a year had passed since she had entered the world of Enigma (as her superiors had defined it) by pointing her feet on the rights that were hers, and Sybil had never been happier about having spoken her mind out loud and not tolerated an evident case of inequity. The satisfaction she felt at the end of the day, the sensation of being useful was realized at last and came second place, in comparison to her passion for what she was doing.

Even at the beginning, in the early days when she ended up doing something new, she had been intrigued with what was happening. She had admired the small line between chaos and logic that Enigma produced, but most of all she felt deep admiration for all those people who worked beside her. They were a strange set of characters, that was true, but each of them was as important as the other. A team.

But not only the cryptanalyst deserved recognition. The entire Bletchley staff deserved some (and she was aware that it would never come, not in the immediate future anyway); in a way, they were the people behind the curtains. Invisible helpers who helped the war effort in a new and completely different way. None of them was at the front, that was true, but their work in deciphering messages, translating them, helped. It sped things up and prevented the army from walking in the dark.

Bletchley was another world, and sometimes it felt as if they were completely disconnected from everything else, but in that world Sybil Crawley had finally managed to achieve the top of her capacities. In a way the year had done miracles.

Her mind worked faster, she had more knowledge (something that, from a young age, she had been starving for), she grasped concepts quicker and found no need in asking for more detailed information because she managed to make connections alone. She learned more, from every one really, not only from those who had been recruited from university, and at some point Sybil had felt as if she had reached a whole new level and she was proud of it.

With the passing of time she had proven her abilities to everyone, working hard to prove that was where she belonged and it was a position she could keep without being left behind. Yes, she had never been to a university, but after a while there weren't many differences between her and the others anymore.

"Sybil?"

She looked up from the papers in front of her, emerging from her 'bubble' (where only she and her work existed) as the others called it. There was a joke going on about the fact that Sybil Crawley could have worked in the middle of a bombing and not noticed what was going on around her because of her deep concentration when working.

"What is it?"

"We are going out for lunch, want to join us and eat some of those _delicious _things that are served? How could anyone not want to eat half stale bread with a color that worryingly looks like yellow and that sort of meat that couldn't be even called meat?"

At the thought of food, Sybil felt a wave of nausea hit her.

"Thanks, but no thanks" she answered "But go and _bon appetite_"

"Are you sure? It's time for lunch break"

"I am sure, really" she said with a smile, trying to sound as nice as possible.

She always feared that the others thought her arrogant or something along that line for not joining them for lunch. It wasn't that, of course, she was just feeling ill and she was about to explain herself when they asked her:

"Sybil, do you have problems with people?"

The question surprised Sybil as what people think or say is something that she had never discussed with her co-workers before, and she thought they hadn't noticed or that they didn't care. She had never been asked about it, so why now? Probably out of curiosity.

"No. People have problems with me. Some of them, sometimes"

"That's not true"

Sybil just made a skeptic look, and raised an eyebrow.

As if she didn't hear them, talking behind her back. Not all of them, this was true, and perhaps it was just a group of five people but that didn't change the facts. It started when she had been promoted, a group of people started to say that her 'promotion' (it couldn't even be called that, considering she had been hired for the position they had later given to her) was the result of her having slept with someone.

She was aware that they only did it to bother and upset her, and she usually didn't mind - having long accepted the fact that people didn't care about the truth as long as there was something they could talk about - but this, added to everything that was already wrong that day, was far more than she could endure.

"Anyway, I was just about to say that I am not feeling well either"

"Oh, I'm sorry. Should you change your mind, you know where to find us. Take a break Sybil, even if it is just to stretch your legs"

"I will"

"We'll be back in a jiffy, not that you will notice, will you?"

"Just go!"

For the rest of her shift, Sybil kept glancing towards the clock, counting the minutes that separated her from the end of the day.

Three o'clock.

Half past three.

Four.

She abandoned the things she was doing and literally ran out of the hut, as soon as she had finished putting on her coat. Sybil quickened her pace and was about to turn left ready to exit Bletchley when she was stopped by someone calling for her.

" Ah, Miss Crawley!"

She turned around, looking slightly upset at the person who had just stopped her thus creating a delay in her perfect plan to go back to her room now that her shift was over, and sneak under the covers sleeping for days.

"Sir" she paused a moment "Good afternoon"

"Good afternoon. May I introduce you to your new neighbor?"

Sybil smiled, resisting the impulse to roll her eyes out of annoyance and looked at the two men standing in front of her. One was Mr. Ridge, the other one (her new neighbor) she had never seen. He was slightly taller than her, with blond hair combed to the side and blue-grey eyes. If he really was her new neighbor she didn't see the urge in presentations, she would have met him anyway sooner or later. Chances were that one day, even if they didn't live in the same house, they would have either had the same shift or one of them would have ended when the other finished.

At the moment she really didn't care who was going to be the new addition at Mr. Brandbridge's, it could have been a creature from the other world and she still wouldn't have found it relevant or that interesting.

"Of course" she said under her breath, trying to sound cordial enough.

"Tom Branson" said the man in front of her, before stretching out his hand.

"Sybil Crawley" she answered, grabbing his hand and shaking it.

"A pleasure"

Sybil looked down, kicking the ground with her feet out of impatience. She was waiting for someone to say something, break the ice, clarify the reason for which she had been stopped. Every unspoken word was wasted time between her arriving home and finally managing to sleep and feel better.

"Were you going back to Mr. Brandbridge's?" asked Tom.

"Yes"

"Mind if I join you?"

"Not really. But I have to insist we leave now, if that's a problem..."

"Not at all"

"Excellent. Mr. Ridge, I wish you a nice afternoon"

"Goodbye Miss. Crawley. Mr. Branson"

For the first part of the journey (that usually lasted nearly twenty minutes) they walked in silence. Sybil concentrated on her walking and kept on thinking about the imminent possibility to relax and recover.

A part of her was indeed curious about the man who was walking beside her, about the new addition to staff, but all the questions that were in her mind remained unspoken. She didn't want to snoop around, especially when they had just been introduced. It would have been rude.

"I would ask you about work, but I'm afraid that I can't do it" said Tom, all of a sudden.

"What?"

"It's one of the rules, not talking about work. But there is one thing I would like to know: how is it being a woman in a man's world?

"You can't act as an ass even if you want to" Sybil joked.

"Are you often tempted?"

"To act as an ass? No, not really. Sometimes it happens that one is tempted, but only when provoked" she paused a moment "Jokes apart, it's a good question. Truth is that it is difficult, no matter how hard we work, no matter how much we deserve something or how smart we are the fact that we are women always comes first. I would say that there is a complete lack of faith and recognition, not to mention that there's injustice. A lot of injustice. Everywhere, everyday, including Bletchley. There are a lot of women here that should be doing something else rather than what they were assigned to because they are women. This would never happen with men"

"The world in a nutshell, Miss Crawley"

"Sybil" she corrected him.

"Sybil"

"So tell me: do you support women's rights?"

"Absolutely. There is no such thing as the weaker sex, women are as capable as men so why shouldn't they have the same rights? A different gender doesn't imply any difference in capabilities and, this way, people don't see that often those who are thought worth nothing are indeed the people who can do the most and accomplish much. Miss Crawley, Sybil, I could tell you many examples to support my view but that will be a conversation for another time"

She had to admit that she was intrigued by his opinions regarding women's rights. They were interesting and she did want to hear more of them, and were it not for the fact that she was feeling ill, she might have asked him to go on with what he was saying.

"Well... That is a conversation I am looking forward to having. Anyway most people wouldn't have given the same answer, or if they did they might have lied just to please me. But you didn't hesitate, nor did your answer seem artificial"

"What kind of people do you know?"

"That's a story for another time. So, where do you come from?" asked Sybil changing the subject of conversation, trying to avoid thinking about some of her acquaintances that didn't even bother to lie about their views on women's rights.

"Ireland. Dublin, but lately I've been living in London" answered Tom.

"Interesting"

"And you?"

"Yorkshire, then London"

Tom looked at her questioningly "City over countryside?"

Sybil laughed, immediately regretting it as her action increased the pain in her stomach.

"More like independence over family business" she answered, stopping a moment from her walk to catch some breath and wait for the pain to ease.

"Family business?"

"Estate management, though it wouldn't have been my job anyway"

"Estate?" Tom was flabbergasted.

"Estate. Downton Abbey in Yorkshire" Sybil explained.

"Which makes you?"

"The youngest daughter of the Earl of Grantham. Lady Sybil Crawley and, before you say anything, I hate my title so I would be glad if you didn't mention it"

"I will avoid the subject"

"Thank you"

"How did you end up in London?"

"I was a teacher before the war"

"Teaching what?"

"Mathematics"

Tom looked at her "Do you always talk like this? Short and strict"

"Up to the point, I would call it. But the answer is no: I'm just tired and don't feel too well this afternoon"

"And you are forced to make conversation with a complete stranger that is about to be your new neighbor"

"No one forced me, I chose to answer. You know, I could have easily ignored you. And contrary to popular belief, I don't mind making conversations with the exception of the frivolous ones that are not up to the point. I'm afraid that it may be considered one of my defects to liven up conversations, dull ones at least. Much to my father's horror because a lady doesn't talk about certain things. Anyway, what were you doing before coming here?"

"I was a journalist. I am a journalist, when this is over I'll probably go back to it. And I write about politics"

"Ever thought about entering politics? It's a good ambition"

"Ambition or dream?"

"Ambition"

"No, I never thought about it. There has never been a concrete chance anyway. Feck, for some time I actually never imagined I could have become a journalist, let alone a politician"

"Why?"

"I was a chauffeur" Tom admitted.

Sybil looked at Tom, and tried to imagine him in green livery. In another universe he could have worked for Downton, who knew how it would have been.

"So you worked for an estate? Just like the one I grew up in?"

"Aye, it seems so"

"I can do that too, working with motors I mean" she sing-songed, making Tom laugh "I asked our chauffeur to tell me everything, though that wasn't enough at some point and I had to read more in books. I can't drive though"

"The only step that separated you from becoming an actual chauffeur"

"I could always ask my sister. She drives" Sybil said, thinking about Edith's plan to learn to drive considering that it might become handy one day. The discussions, Edith's victory and her first attempt. She smiled at the memories and a hint of pain, truth was she missed her sister. Edith and Mary. And then there was little George who probably wasn't so little anymore, cousin Matthew at the front. Who knew how they were all dealing with the events. Who knew how they were.

She should write to her sisters.

Yes, that was an excellent idea.

She would do it as soon as she had the time and she felt a little bit better.

"You said you were the youngest, how many siblings do you have?"

"Two: Mary and Edith. Do you have any siblings Mr. Branson?"

"Tom and I have four: Aislin, Kieran, Emalee, and Sean. In the following order, I'm the third born"

"There's quite a lot of you"

"Even more counting all the cousins" joked Tom "We were a mass of wild children or that's how our parents used to consider us."

Tom opened the door of Mr. Brandbridge's and let her walk in first, holding the door open for her. Together they climbed the stairs that led to the second floor and then stopped in the corridor. So they really were neighbors, if one considered that Tom was lodging in the room just next to her. Sybil had to admit that when Mr. Ridge introduced her to her 'neighbor' she thought that Tom would have lodged in the house, yes, but on the first floor.

"How did we end up talking about all sorts of things after ten minutes that we have known each other? I'm pretty sure we are going against all the rules of society" said Tom.

"Perhaps, but it's 1941 and there's a war going on, and we are in this place out of all places. I guess the so-called _good society _is the last thing we have to bother about"

"Touché. Have you always been this open-minded?"

"Open minded? I'm not sure that's the word, but yes. And it's not really being open-minded, more straight forward; there are rules I don't believe in, or more likely I believe them to be ancient and outdated, not fitting for the modern world. If I cared more about certain matters..."

"We wouldn't be here talking"

"We wouldn't be here talking. I would still be at Downton as a matter of fact, who knows I could have signed up as a nurse. But that's another story"

"For another time"

Sybil nodded "After all, we work in the same place, live in the same house and there are only three shifts a day. Chances are that we won't be able to avoid each other even if we tried to, so this conversation will eventually continue"

"I'm looking forward to it"

"So do I. I hope you'll have a pleasant evening Mr. Branson"

"Tom. And you too, I wish you a good recovery"

"Thank you" said Sybil, smiling at him one last time before closing the door of her room behind her, finally having the chance to rest.


	7. Chapter 7

**1941, An Afternoon Talk**

The last rays of sunshine were coming through the window and gave the small kitchen at Mr. Brandbridge's a golden atmosphere. In the late afternoon light all the surfaces seemed to glow and the grains of dust seemed to dance in the air made visible by the rays of sunshine.

The room was in the most absolute silence, except for the rhythmical ticking of the clock that reminded Sybil of the sound of a metronome, a sound that she had always liked. Wasn't it funny that she had always thought the sound of it a help in each task that she was doing? Back, forth, back, forth and so on for eternity (though it wasn't eternity of course) . There had been many things that she had learned at the sound of the metronome and playing the piano was the last and least important one. She had never mastered the art of moving her fingers on a keyboard and, if she were to be honest, she thought it nothing more than a waste of time. It was boring, sitting there and just reading note after note after note, reproducing it with her fingers for what really seemed the longest moments of her life. No, she had left that task to Mary and Edith (and Edith was really quite good at it) and the only thing that remained from her never-ending piano lessons was the fact that Sybil used to sneak away the metronome and use it for her own purposes.

It was a source of concentration or rather something that helped her move quicker without losing focus in what she was doing. With the metronome she learned to use a typewriter quicker. At first she was slow on the typewriter and then with a metronome she was faster, managing to arrive at three tips before it managed to get back on its original position.

And now, she was sitting at the kitchen table with a plate containing a sandwich (either supper or just a snack) and a steaming cup of tea whose aroma was barely smellable. The daily copy of the newspaper in front of her, a pencil in one hand and the other resting on the table, she seemed to have disappeared once more in her own world. The puzzle in front of her keeping her thoughts away from the persistent ache in her lower abdomen and the feeling of discomfort caused by her period.

She was ever so grateful at the moment to have a midnight shift scheduled because it had given her the chance to rest for a longer time than she would have imagined and also the possibility to prepare herself for the thought that she had to make a fifteen minute long walk and then work for eight hours straight. It could have been worse, and she could not forget that the midnight shift (which was so often despised) was in reality her favorite. For no particular reason except that she thought it to be more thrilling.

"Tom Branson, could you please stop looking at me? It's getting on my nerves" she said without lifting her eyes and looking at him in the face.

"How did you know it was me?"

"Because, as you can see, the others are not here. All sleeping or at work. Or out. Or in the bathroom, like Lavinia. She popped her head in here a couple of minutes before so..."

Tom entered the kitchen, putting the book he was holding on the table before taking out a cup from the cupboard to boil some water and brew himself a cup of tea. Sybil now looked at him, studying his movements and smiling behind his back before stretching her back and leaning over trying to read the title of the book that he was reading.

"How are you doing?"

"Me?"

"You're the one who yesterday afternoon seemed on the brick of collapsing, and you said so yourself" he paused a moment, making a teasing smile "Besides do you see anyone else?"

"No"

"Precisely . So, how are you?"

"Better, if one considers the larger picture. I certainly don't feel like collapsing anymore. Apparently my mother has always been right when saying that a good night sleep can help make everything better"

"Surely not everything"

"No. Not everything, I'll give you that. Sometimes not even all the sleep in the world can put things right" she replied, a hint of sadness in her voice as she thought about all the things in her life, that had happened until now, and that were unlikely to be sorted out any time soon or sorted out at all.

_"But that's what I want to do with my life papa!"_

_"And I'm telling you that you won't"_

_"It's too late now, I've already send applications and received a response. I'm going to be a teacher at a girl college in London, starting next month" Sybil replied defiantly, trying not to show any emotion as a reaction to her father's words. It would have made things worse because admitting that she cared about what he was saying, no matter how unreasonable the words were, would have only made her feel guilty. And there was nothing to feel guilty for._

_"If you go know this: there will be no more money"_

_"Good, because I will earn my own!" she hissed._

_"And you don't have to bother with coming back" the Lord of Grantham added, looking coldly at his youngest daughter in a disapproving way and shaking his head "We should have taken measures years ago" he mumbled, slamming the door behind him, and leaving Sybil alone in her room with her vision blurry because of the tears and the words 'you don't have to bother with coming back' echoing in her mind._

"Sybil? Did I say something that upset you?"

She shook her head in denial, quickly rubbing her eyes with her hands and trying to suppress the painful memory of her past.

"No" she said, her voice nothing more than a whisper "I'm perfectly fine"

Tom gave her a questioningly look but didn't go further in questioning her. Not only because it was more than clear that Sybil Crawley didn't have the slightest intention of admitting that there was something that had caused a quick change of mood in her, let alone talking about it with him, but also because he had known her for what? Less than a day? He felt as if insisting on the matter would have been a mere invasion of privacy.

"Apart from the stomach ache, that is" added Sybil.

"I'm sorry"

"Oh, I guess I am used to it. It happens once a month" Sybil said with all honesty, with the intention of upsetting him or maybe shocking him. Most men did, not that she had such a vast experience when it came down to men.

But instead of making faces or something along that line Tom started to laugh, much to Sybil's surprise.

"Do you enjoy dropping bombs like that one in the middle of conversations?"

"Am I amusing you, Mr. Branson?"

"No"

"Are you making fun of me?"

"Absolutely not, though I'm quite sure that you were making fun of me. Must I remind you that I have two sisters, if your attempt was to shock me, I'm sorry to tell you that you failed. I didn't grow up in a glass bubble and my sisters have always been very open about certain matters"

"Many men have sisters, that doesn't change anything"

"It does, especially if you don't come from a posh background"

"Are you insulting me?"

"No. But when you live with seven people in a small house, you can't exactly be picky with the things you want or don't want to know. Without offense, but did you know what your family was doing during the day when you still lived back at..."

"Downton? Yes and no? I suppose you are right on some points but wrong on others, but no I didn't know what they were doing with their time. And that was mutual"

If they had known, things would have probably gone in a very different way.

"Not that there was complete disinterest... me and my sisters are close!" she added, the last part of her sentence coming out as an excuse even if it wasn't meant to be one.

"I wasn't implying the opposite"

"Just to make it clear" Sybil stated.

"Just to make it clear"

"Was it one of your sisters who gave you the novel?"

"Why? A man can't read A Room with a View for his own interest?" he paused "I would have never thought that you believed in stereotypes"

"I don't. Besides why shouldn't men read E.M. Forster? Apart from the fact that it doesn't fit, why should there be a distinction between books that men read and that women read? What makes a novel, a novel for women?"

"Good point. I don't think such a distinction should be valid"

"Nor do I. I mean, everyone supposes that only women like romances but that's not true. Men can enjoy them too, just as women like to read other things. But back to the point how is it that you are in possession of 'A Room with a View'?"

"My sister, Emalee, gave it to me"

"Ha!"

"But she never read it. She picked it up by chance as a present for me, thinking that it might be something that I would enjoy"

"And are you?"

"I've only started it, but yes I like it so far"

"Is your sister going to read it?"

"She might, but only this copy. To cut a long story short, it's her way of saying to stay safe and come back home at the end of this. I need to stay alive in order to bring her the book"

"She did come up with a nice idea"

"Aye, she did. And I guess that it will work"

"Can I ask you something personal?"

"We already agreed that, at this point, we already broke all possible rules set by society. Go on, if I find it too shocking, I won't answer"

"Why didn't you enlist?" Sybil blushed beet red and covered her face, second thoughts about the words that had just left her mouth already coming into her mind.

That really was a question she shouldn't have asked, wasn't it? It was just something that had stimulated her curiosity. Until now at Bletchley, the staff was all formed by university professors or women, and Tom wasn't part of the first category and she was just curious. Even more curious was how it was possible that he ended up in this place. How was it that he had been recruited? Maybe through crosswords races just like her? So many questions, none of which had an answer.

"Sorry, it's too personal... I didn't mean to intrude or anything. Just don't answer"

"I have a heart murmur. Never knew, came back from the medical and a couple of days later it came in the post"

"I don't know what to say. Is it dangerous?"

"Not for the kind of life I've been living and will live in future"

"I'm glad"

"That I'm going to live?"

"That you are not going to drop dead from one moment to the next, that would be an inconvenience to say the least"

"Only an inconvenience? You aren't happy that I'm going to live as long a life as the next person does?"

"That comes after. You know, we once had a guest at Downton who dropped dead from one moment to the next. And I'm not joking, it's a true story. A Turkish diplomat named Kamal Pamuk. True story, I swear"

"I'm not sure if I believe this one"

"Then go to Downton and ask about it yourself. I'm not sure you will get an answer but you can always say that you tried. Or, Tom Branson, you could trust me and make things easier. Besides there really is no reason for not trusting me, I haven't told any lies to you"

"But then again we have known each other for only a day"

Even if for the both of them it seemed much more, especially when conversation came so easily. Not to mention that they were very comfortable in each others presence.

"I don't go around telling lies. It's a habit I have always despised. No matter how harsh the truth may sound, I always say it"

"Remarkable"

"Do you tell lies Mr. Branson?"

"Sometimes, but never about serious matters"

"So if you were to say that a Turkish diplomat died in your house, should I believe you or not?"

"The question wouldn't come up in first place. What would a Turkish diplomat be doing at the Bransons'? That's probably the most unlikely scenario ever. There wouldn't even be a place for the poor fellow!"

Sybil started to laugh, immediately regretting it as the twinges of pain came back, stronger than before.

"Are you all right?"

"Don't make me laugh! It hurts!"

"Sorry. Back to the diplomat, what happened after?"

"Nothing. I mean we removed the body and he was buried and so on. And my grandmother started the never-ending story of 'how an Englishman would have never dreamed about dying in someone else's home' but after a while it was all forgotten. And Evelyn Napier, Pamuk's friend, never stopped apologizing for it"

"Is it all forgotten now?"

"I don't know. I suppose, it's not the main topic of conversation anymore but I couldn't tell for sure whether or not the story still comes up from time to time"

"Each family has their own stories"

"One always wonders which one they will be"

Suppose she one day she would have a family of her own, what were the adventures, the tales that would remain? No one could tell.

"Are there many stories in your family? Being an ancient one and so on?"

"Oh yes. And I have my favorites of course. An aunt of mine eloped with the family's chauffeur, and another one had an illegitimate child, who she didn't give up, and lived a fabulous life in London being the director of an important newspaper. Are there stories like this in your family?"

"No, at least I don't think so. Though we have a lot of revolutionaries, is that interesting?"

"Yes. I would say yes"

"And when she was little we used to tell all sorts of stories to Emalee and she ended up believing them. One day she got sick of us and announced that she would go away to some exotic place where we couldn't bother her anymore"

"Did she try?"

"Yes, and it was discovered that the exotic place was a spot in our garden. Though I have to admit it is a lovely place indeed"

"My sister wanted to do the same. She must have been twelve? She wanted to go to London and live an adventurous life, she was actually thinking about stealing the silver to sell. But she was given some money to spend in the village instead, so she offered me and my other sister, Edith, cupcakes from the bakery" said Sybil with a smile, recalling that joyful moment in her past. Something that happened before the crack in Mary and Edith's relationship. Something that happened before the cracks in Sybil's relationship with her parents. Those would be the memories of Downton that she would keep in her heart forever.

"You are very fond of them, are you?"

"I suppose I am. But the same goes for you, what about your other siblings?"

"Well there is not much to be said. We always called Aislin 'the plague' because she was insufferable and when she started with something she would never let go. Which worked a lot when she wanted favors, though as an ambassador she always made sure that she respected the deal. Kieran has been a chauffeur like me and then opened up his own garage, then there's Emalee and Sean"

"And you are closer with Emalee than the others"

"I am. I love them all and so on but I'm closer to Emalee than the others. I don't know why, it's just like that"

"There's nothing wrong in it. I'd say I'm equally close to both Mary and Edith, maybe there was a point in my life where I was closer to Edith, but generally I'm equally close to them both"

Tom smiled before taking the last sip from his cup of tea.

"What time do you start?" Sybil blurted out "Or have you already..."

"Midnight. Do you want to take the walk together?"

"I'd love to. It'll be nice to have some company"

"Let's leave at twenty before midnight"

"I'll be ready at that time" replied Sybil.

Tom got up, collected his book and placed his cup in the sink. He was at the door frame when he turned around and asked "I didn't keep you from your crosswords, did I?"

"No problem, I'll solve them now. It won't take too much anyway"

"Not too much? One day I would like to know how much that is"

"I assure you it's a very small amount of time. Should I make amends?"

"Amends?" Tom asked bewildered.

"For not letting you read your book"

"No, you don't have to. I loved talking to you. See you later"

"Yes"


End file.
